Do You Believe in Angels?

I never set out to write about angels. I didn’t sit down one day and think to myself, “Angels, now there’s a good basis for a book.” In fact, it was the furthest thing from my mind – before I had the dream. Back then, I had visions of Regency heroes and quirky modern heroines, but angels? Not so much.

Until the dream.

Of course I didn’t realize at the time that I was writing about angels. They weren’t very forthcoming in the beginning. I actually thought that I was writing about a woman who was at a crossroad in her life where the ultimate choice she made could literally have life or death consequences. I know what you’re thinking. All this from a dream? Well, no, not exactly. The dream itself centered around a woman at a nightclub dancing the night away with a sinfully attractive man. Simple enough but for the fact that, when she turned away from him, his eyes began to glow red, giving him a devilish look. Still rather unremarkable, right? Until the woman showed up in my next dream. Only this time, she was dressed in a rather proper manner and moving into a garage apartment, preparing to take care of the twins of a widower.

That’s how Nora’s Soul came to fruition. Two dreams, interconnected, that wouldn’t leave me alone. They were all I thought about. Who was this woman and why was she out dancing with a devil one night and preparing to care for children the next? The questions fueled my imagination, demanding answers. The first answer came in the identity of the woman, Nora, who began to give me clues to her background. The angels came in later. You see, in the beginning, I thought I was dealing with a clear-cut depiction of good versus evil, devil versus angel, but as the story progressed, I realized that not everything is so black and white. There are beautiful shades of gray.

Dante is a shade of gray. When he first came to me in my dream, Dante portrayed himself as something of a devil. So that’s how I described him. He was a devil, his only purpose was to steal Nora’s Soul, and that was the end of the story. Or so I thought. But Dante had other ideas. Just when I thought I was done with him, he wouldn’t let me go. He kept invading my dreams, telling a different story. I soon learned that Dante was an angel who, not unlike Nora, was led down the wrong path by his desires. And Dante also finds himself having to make some decisions that could have severe ramifications not only for himself but also for others connected to him.

At its core, Nora’s Soul is about a woman’s crisis of faith – in herself as well as the heavenly beings who are trying to set her on the right path. But it’s also about what happens when one of those heavenly beings has been led astray, his own faith – in himself, in his kind – tested. Even Dante will have to answer the question: Do you believe in angels?